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have
however indicated that this idea remains Douglas' own, and it is not official US Government policy.
that
Options designed to increase the rate of departures
B.
25. (a) Voluntary repatriation to Vietnam
desirable
there
UNHCR consider voluntary repatriation to be the most
solution to refugee problems. We agree.
Not suprisingly,
have been few volunteers for repatriation to Vietnam. Of the 20 who
have SO far applied from Hong Kong, 14 have returned to Vietnam; the
other six applications are still pending.
response to an
approach from Mr Hartling in September 1984, the Vietnamese said
In
that there was по reason why Vietnam should take back Vietnamese who
did not wish to participate in the work of reconstruction and who
left Vietnam, although they were prepared to consider applications
on a case-by-case basis.
This augurs badly for any large scale
repatriation to Vietnam; and there are not in any case
many more volunteers.
(b) Local absorption
likely to be
UNHCR also favour settlement in the country of first asylum.
Kong has absorbed
Vietnam, since 1975.
Hong
14,500 displaced Indo-Chinese, mostly from
Hong Kong's relative wealth might be cited
as
a reason to take a greater number of Vietnamese. But the territory
is already densely populated; it has had to deal with enormous
immigration from China in the same period and Chinese legal
immigrants still number over 27,000 a year. The people of Hong Kong
would be unlikely to welcome Vietname se immigration while illegal
immigrants from China are being repatriated daily. There is always
the danger that further absorption by Hong Kong would trigger more
Vietnam.
departures from
Vietnamese
with future
to absorb a
programme of
But the Hong Kong
Nevertheless, if the flow of
arrivals can be slowed and
an adequate way found to deal
arrivals, it would be reasonable to expect Hong Kong
proportion of those
centres, as part of a general
resettlement or repatriation for the remainder.
it
in
Government would only consider this on the strict understanding that
was a once and for all gesture, which would need to be linked to
international effort, with UK participation, to deal with what
would then be a fixed number of refugees in Hong Kong.
an
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